wagtail, who stole along parallel with them on the other side of the
hedge.

"I have so much to thank you for," were the first words she caught from
Orion, "that I am shy of asking you yet another favor; but this one
indeed concerns yourself. You know how deep a blow was struck me by
little Mary's childish hand; still, the impulse that prompted her had its
rise in her honest, upright feeling and her idolizing love of you."

"And you would like me to take charge of her?" asked Paula. "Such a wish
is of course granted beforehand -only. . . ."

"Only?" repeated Orion.

"Only you must send her here; for you know that I will never enter your
doors again."

"Alas that it should be so!--But the child has been very ill and can
hardly leave the house at present; and--since I must own it--my mother
avoids her in a way which distresses the child, who is over-excited as it
is, and fills her with new terrors."

"How can Neforis treat her little favorite so?"

"Remember," said Orion, "what my father has been to my poor mother. She
is now completely crushed: and, when she sees the little girl, that last
scene of her unhappy husband's life is brought back to her, with all that
came upon my father and me, beyond a doubt through Mary. She looks on
the poor little thing as the bane of the family?"